Maia Grigoryevna Chiburdanidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgia (formerly USSR).
Awarded the WIM title in 1974 and the WGM title in 1977 she was also awarded the IM title in 1978 and the GM title in 1984.
She became the 6th Women's World Champion in 1978 by defeating Nona Gaprindashvili (+4, =9, -2) and held off challenges from Nana Alexandria (+4, =8, -4) in 1981, Irina Levitina (+5, =7, -2) in 1984, Elena Donaldson-Akhmilovskaya (+4, =9, -1) in 1986 and Nana Ioseliani (+3, =11, -2) in 1988.
She finally lost the title to China's Xie Jun (+2, =9, -4) in 1991. She was also USSR Women's Champion in 1977.
She has successfully competed in Men's events, 1st at Banja Luka 1985, 3rd at Bilbao 1987 and 2nd at Brussels 1987. She was top scorer with 7.5/12 for the women's team in the Ladies vs Veterans event (Cancan Tournament, Roquebrune, France) held in 1998, enabling her team to draw with the Veterans, including Korchnoi, Spassky and Hort.

whiteshark: A living legend of the Georgian chess, already a major force in women's chess became world champion in 1978 at the age of 17 by overcoming another legend Nona Gaprindashvili who herself is the first female player to achieve the Grandmaster title.

Chiburdanidze, followed her in 1984 and during her reign she defended her title four times, against Nana Alexandria, Irina Levitina, Elena Akhmilovskaya and Nana Ioseliani.

She was not able to defend her title against Susan Polgar in 1991 but continued playing at the highest level.

She achieved nine gold medals in Chess Olympiads with former USSR and Georgia not to count many individual medals she won during those campaigns. In 1997 she led Georgia to win the European Team Championship.

She reached semi finals both in 2001 and 2004 FIDE World Women Chess Championships and both times she lost to the eventual champions Zhu Chen and Antoaneta Stefanova.

A sports hero in her own country most recently led Georgia to the Olympic title in Dresden in November 2008 with a brilliant 7.5 out of 9 performance.

centercounter: Maia is a lady of great class. I played her in a simul in the 80's when I was a youngster and after a nice game, which of course she won, her coach, GM Gufeld spent a lot of time going over the game with me, joined after the simul by Maia. It did not seem like a duty to them, they simply enjoyed being genuinely nice people.

filipino chess players leaugue,dubai,united arab emirates Rolenson Loyola shared the limelight with <Georgian legend GM Maia Chiburdanidze during the Ramadan Active Chess Festival in Abu Dhabi last August>. Loyola led a one-two finish by the Filipinos in the Open division after he scored eight points in nine rounds to emerge champion.

<Chiburdanidze, who ruled as World Woman Champion from 1978-1991, took the championship in the Ladies division, while Armenian GM Hrair Simonian ruled the Masters division.>

National Master Robert Arellano was second after prevailing by half a point in the tiebreak score over the UAE's FM Khouri Ahmed Abbas, who wound up third. Arellano and Abbas finished with 7.5 points apiece.

Another Filipino, Armando Nachor of the Abu Dhabi-based Filipino chess group ADFORCE, finished joint fourth with three others each toting seven points. FCPL's Marvin Marcos settled for solo seventh place with 6.5 points.

It was also a well-deserved payoff for Loyola, Arellano and Marcos, who are all based in Dubai, as they had to travel nearly four hours every day from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back during the four-day tournament. Games were held at night starting at 10 in observace of the Ramadan. The three hitched a ride with another FCPL player, Carlos de Guzman, who also competed in the event.

rangek: <<From Dvoretsky's book, SCE4 Opening Developments>>From the very start Chiburdanidze sensed that the playing advantage was not on her side. The simple explanation for this - Alexandria's superior preparation - did not satisfy the champion. Of course, the real reason had to be some secret and illegal support to her opponent.

There came a stream of accusations, protests and demands. The demostrators, film crew and press centre officials were accused of helping Nana... Even the arbitars were not above suspicion - Chiburdanidze demanded that the arbiters' desk should always be arranged behind Alexandria's back, to exclude any possiblility of the arbiters prompting Nana, when she was thinking over her move. On one occasion police officials searched the press centre, tapping on the walls in the search of a device with which the trainers were transmitting moves to Nana on the strage. Maya did not even trust her own trainers - they were effectively under house arrest and were forbidden to attend the playing venue.

waustad: Now that Pia Cramling is playing in a senior event, maybe her old nemesis will start playing in them too. They are by far the strongest women over 50 now that Nona G's rating has slipped. They are, after all, 20 years younger.

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